One dies, 13 injured as Indonesian volcano erupts

JAKARTA - Indonesian authorities Tuesday evacuated panicked residents near an erupting volcano on Java island that spewed clouds of hot ash, killing one and causing burn injuries to at least 13 people, officials and media reports said.

Metro TV reported that thousands of people were moved by trucks and cars after Mount Merapi started spewing ash just before dusk.

Television footage showed residents, most wearing masks, being taken away in trucks with windscreens covered by dust. A massive evacuation were continue underway until late Tuesday.

“This is an initial phase of an eruption,” said Subandrio, head of the Volcanic Technology Development and Research Centre in Yogyakarta.

A three-month-old baby died of breath shortness after healing ash from Merapi and at least 13 other people were treated at Yogyakarta’s Panti Nugroho hospital, health officials said.

“All 13 people sustained burn injuries, one of them is in serious condition,” said a health official who identified herself as Lusi.

Sasongko was quoted as saying by Metro TV from the nearby Muntilan general hospital that “the infant has died on the way to the hospital due to volcanic ash”. He said nine other persons, mostly elderly, were also suffering from respiratory problems.

Vulcanologist Surono said three explosions were heard at around 6 p.m. (1100 GMT) and Merapi spewing black smoke of volcanic clouds up to 1,500-metre high into the sky, while heat clouds flowing down its slopes. He said he was still unsure to which direction of the heat clouds went down due to the darkness on the mountain’s slopes.

On Monday authorities began moving children and elderly people to some of 60 emergency shelters after scientists upgraded the alert status as lava flowing down the cone’s slopes reached 4.5 km.

Tents, blankets and plastic sheeting were distributed to dozens of evacuation points around Yogyakarta and Central Java provinces, said Arief Setyo Hadi, an official with the Indonesian Red Cross.

An official at a disaster relief post in Yogyakarta said 137 tremors were detected from the volcano Monday night.

Officials estimated up to 40,000 people were living in the endangered areas.

The 2,968-metre volcano last erupted in 2006, killing two people. Its most deadly eruption on record occurred in 1930 when 1,370 people were killed.

At least 66 people were killed in a 1994 eruption.